Grow Your Own Zuul

I realize that Crisis on Infinite Earths is a massive undertaking to start with and I already have plans to do a recurring recap series for the TV series Smallville, so I feel like I need to do some Marvel just so that I don't get too overwhelmed by Crisis events, Lantern Rings, and Thanagarians. Marvel's going to allow me to keep things a bit more simple. That's why I chose as the first Marvel property I chose to explore on this blog one that includes the Inhumans, the Terrigen Bomb, the Terrigen Pox, a nonagenarian Captain America, mutants as an endangered species (again), the Maximoff twins, an eight month gap in chronology, oh, and Cable. This should be simple, right? ... Sigh...

To start out with some background, Uncanny Avengers, volume 3 is written by Gerry Duggan with pencils and inks by Ryan Stegman and colors and cover art by Richard Isanove. Damn... I suppose I can't talk about this title without going into detail about what sprang before it. The previous two volumes of Uncanny Avengers had both been penned by Rick Remender, so just seeing a different author's name on the by-line is a welcome change. Remender has a very dark approach to his comics, dealing more with anti-heroes, crapsack universes, characters so entrenched in gray morality that their favorite color ranges from charcoal to gunmetal to taupe and characters whose noble goals are compromised not only by having to make hard choices for the sake of the greater good, but also by being written as pretty horrible people, most pertinently to this subject, his Marvel project immediately preceding Uncanny Avengers: Uncanny X-Force.

Uncanny X-Force was greatly heralded when it hit store shelves. The long and short of it is that the team is a black ops kill squad who would make morally compromising decisions and lived in a intractably miserable world that complemented the darker aspects of their personalities.

The premise of Uncanny Avengers, in theory, is quite the opposite after the events of Avengers vs X-Men (and extra-textually, about 8 publication years defined by big events that pitted heroes against each other), Captain America founded the Unity Squad, an Avengers lineup that/PR stunt that would be half made up of X-Men characters. The goal was to demonstrate to the world at large an active attempt to both be inclusive and cooperative with the Mutant population. It was a book that should have been a fun mash-up, where we got to see characters who almost never interacted having adventures together. It even included characters who generally get along with everyone like Thor and the Wasp. What resulted was a series in which everyone who would make morally compromising decisions and lived in a intractably miserable world that complemented the darker aspects of their personalities. Remender from my experience has one trick he does really well, but it's like that one uncle who likes to do magic tricks at family gatherings attempting to pull a rabbit out of his hat at a wake. It's not always contextually appropriate.

But that's all behind us and we can forget that as we get comfy with the new creative team and a new status quo. Oh yeah. In the spirit of keeping things simple, let me try to sum up what has been happening across the company line that directly effects this book... as simply and coherently as possible.

• The Inhumans' Terrigen crystals (which they used to implement to very selectively give members of their species enhanced abilities/powers) got ka-boomed, causing a cloud of Terrigen mist to spread across the globe. Apparently, there's a lost tribe of Inhumans that left Attilan and were fruitful and multiplied... with humanity... and over the millennia were absorbed into humanity and their existence forgotten. That is until the Terrigen mist (or T-Mist as the kids are calling it) caused all the long-lost Inhumans to cocoon up and spring forth newly Inhumanized. 
• Oh, next important thing is that the world literally ended last Summer during the Secret Wars event. That's okay. Dr. Doom saved it by condensing it and the scraps of a bunch of other realities into one big mashup Earth that he ruled over as an omnipotent god-emperor. But Doom being Doom, his own hubris ruined everything and the multiverse is back in place... sorta, kinda. The main reality has been restored, at least. Although a bunch of characters from other realities live here now. 
• Thirdly, this book, in fact all the books launched around the same time, takes place 8 months after the events of Secret Wars. All of them have some pretty significant shifts in their status quo that the audience is left on their own to determine what exactly went down. 
• Captain America is presently as old as he should be chronologically. I haven't read his solo title in a while, but from what I understand his Super Soldier Serum had an expiration date and for some reason it undid the effects of his cryostasis from when he was trapped in a block of ice for decades after the end of WW2. And yet, that didn't stop his body from looking ripped as hell at the age of 90. Okay, Marvel, whatever...

Now that I've probably spent more time on this title's backstory that I probably will on the book itself, onto the first arc proper of Uncanny Avengers.

Pietro: the silver-haired master
of Fast Forwarding.

The cover for issue #1 is a wrap-around gatefold that shows off the team fighting floral foe from all sides. Returning members include its founder, Captain America (whom She-Hulk remarked looked like Robert Redford now that he's elderly, but I'm not seeing it), Rogue, Quicksilver, and Brother Voodoo. New members include the Johnny Storm, Human Torch, Deadpool (because Wolverine 1 is still dead), Spider-Man, and a new character we will learn is named Synapse. Her costume is pretty generic (and honestly led me to believe she was a martial artist) except for the embellishment on her chest of a line zig-zagging down across a red dot, like a EEG machine, which is an early tip about her powers. Everyone else's costumes on the cover are pretty standard aside for two details. For some reason, Peter Parker's spider emblem on his chest glows. I haven't read one of his solo books in ages, so for all I know he has shrapnel in his chest and Stark made him an arc reactor in the shape of a spider. Secondly, Quicksilver, possibly for the first time ever, has a chest emblem. And it's a fast forward sign. And I love Quicksilver so much right now.

The book begins months ago, with a newly Terrigenized older gentleman bursting forth from his cocoon and immediately feeling a kinship with his houseplant. Down the hall another member of the household is trying to get out of their cacoon and old man shrub is really, really happy about his new lease on plantlife. He goes out into the world, joins a few causes, then finally realize what must be done.

Your extra dollar at work.

EIGHT MONTHS LATER... No, I don't believe this is an abuse of ALLCAPS. Considering the creative team thought that it was worthy of a full page, I think just putting it in ALLCAPS, shows subtlety and sophistication, comparatively. I remember when I first started reading comics when all that would get would be a small caption in the top right corner of the top right panel. Of course, then the poor creative team would be forced to do a whole other page of storytelling. It must have been too much for them. What, with this being a number one issue and thus we invariably paid an extra dollar for it, I suppose it would have made too much sense for the writer to put in an extra dollar's worth of effort. What this honestly tells me is that Duggan and Stegman figured they couldn't think of a an other way of meeting their page count that wouldn't effect the pace of the narrative or spend an extra 2-3 minutes fleshing out their characters' interpersonal dynamics. It's a lazy bit of logic, though. I think Hickman popularized this during his Avengers run, but in all fairness, he aspired for a grand epic in a way this book does not.

You get the impression he says this at every opportunity.
Meetings, lunch dates, running into each other at the bathroom...

We finally meet up with the majority of the main lineup who are doing battle at the US capitol against a super adaptiod. Rogue is trying to call out a plan, but Deadpool shouts out "Avengers Assemble" in what I assume to be the seventh time before lunch that day. Spider-Man is not amused. My guess is that much like an older sibling, not being the class clown on a given team is making Spidey jealous of the new baby. 

Rogue efficiently tells her team they suck
while doing their job for them.

Everything just fails to go according to plan because nobody is listening to Rogue and the adaptoid ends up co-opting the Human Torch's cosmically endowed firepower. Also, Synapse opts to mentally control a flock of pigeons, so clearly she's bringing a lot to the table. Rogue has clearly been dealing with this ragtag team and is reaching the end of her tether when it comes to them not coordinating, let alone not listening to her. She smashes the adaptoid about while snarling about how fighting killer robots is rote for her, but they can't seem to handle this one. So much for the Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Do you know how many evil robot-related dark futures Rogue ends up surviving you guys? Take notes!

Deadpool weaponizes his terminal illness.

While Rogue has it down, Deadpool steps in and exposes his skin to the adaptoid. It briefly adapts to Deadpool... until it croaks. Yup. Deadpool gambled that cancer is something an adaptoid would absorb and won. That was lucky, because giving it his healing factor would have been hard to live down.

After the battle, Spider-Man pulls the good Captain aside and tenders his resignation. It's apparently been a long time coming. He's having a difficult time dealing with Deadpool's approach and-- ohmygodwhat'swrongwithhisface?!?!?!

To quote Rosemary's Baby, "What have you done to its eyes?!"

Now is about as good a time as any to discuss the artwork. In terms of backgrounds, he's fine. His bodies are exaggerated in I suppose early Liefeldian ways, but they're serviceable. Faces seem to be Stegman's Waterloo. For the most part, they look very plastic, with very generic, almost cartoon or doll-like features. It's not terribly distracting, but there is some uncanny valley going on here. It's a different matter when he has to render older characters. I mean, I mentioned earlier that She-Hulk said he looked like Robert Redford. He was still gentlemanly and austere. I guess he's been through some stuff since then, possibly a wood chipper because now he has that patented Old Man Logan type grizzle to his appearance. I'm not sure if he's supposed to be heavily wrinkled or scarred. It's just unpleasant especially when contrasted with the light touch he takes on everyone else's features.

Sidebar: Why the fuck was this book cancelled? 

Who taught Stegman how to draw human anatomy?
That isn't how it works! They're like Leifeld action figures...

They don't have too long to dwell on their teammate's departure because it's time for a press conference! No, it wouldn't be an Avengers title without a press conference. The X-Men have the Danger Room, Spider-Man stops petty crooks, the Fantastic Four squabble and banter. The Avengers "establish the status quo" staple is public relations. 

The conversation starts out pretty standard, but then Rogue gets questioned about the current state of affairs with the mutant population. In the 8 month gap, it seems that the Terrigen mist has been causing an epidemic in the mutant population, hereafter referred to as the T-Pox (despite it being around for 2-3 years of publication without this happening), causing Storm to secretly evacuate the mutant population to another dimension. Because a plane of existence populated by demons is preferable to the main one. Yet another of Xavier's best students illustrating that peaceful coexistence with baseline humans might not be worth it. Rogue, being Rogue, shoots from the hip and tells the reporter she's not going to let "Inhuman poison" stop her superheroing career. A PR blunder, obviously. But don't worry. Cap is there to smooth things over and have everyone make nicey-nice, hugging Rogue and Synapse, who happens to be a new Inhuman with the biggest of fake grins.

Dude, Rogue. Synapes is right there...

Cap will make them one big happy family at gunpoint sheildpoint if he has to.

Johnny tries to get Spidey to listen to reason. He alludes to the fact that Ben Grimm is off being a spaceman and Reed and Sue are gone (I *think* they might be busy rebuilding the multiverse along with their reality warping son, but don't quote me on that), and his long-standing friendship with Peter is the one thing that seems to be giving him a sense of normalcy in the new status quo. 

It would be remiss of me not to point out how closely Johnny
resembles a Ken doll with his face stuck in eternal shock.

However, even though Spider-Man has stuck with the Avengers under far worse circumstances than "I really don't like that guy," the plot demands that Spider-Man leave despite the earnest plea of the lifelong friend who has effectively lost his entire family. The friend who he once subbed in for when the world thought him dead is apparently not enough to keep Spider-Man around for emotional support. You know, for a character whose whole MO is supposed to be the tug of war between his obligations as a superhero and his obligations to his friend and family, he sure does choose the egocentric douchebag option without too much hesitation here. It's a sad moment-- for a split second until Deadpool comes in and kills the mood. I'm guessing that's his role on the team. He's the moment killer.

Elsewhere, Cap and Rogue are having a walk'n'talk leadership session. It turns out Spidey isn't the only one in the "we hate Deadpool" club. Rogue voices how sick she is of him as they cross past a gift shop filled with his merchandise.  This is such beautiful meta-commentary that I want to have this panel framed. Or I would, if the art was better. 

If you think this is a jab at the fandom, well duh.

Said gift shop is part of their not-so-secret hideout which is an abandoned theater (ye gods, this speaks to me in a way that is really off-topic), which is so devoid of a need to subtlety, let alone secrecy that they go so far as to put "AVENGERS" up on the theater's marquee in huge block letters and what I will argue is an utter abuse of Allcaps. Hell, a newspaper shown a few pages ago was in Allcaps, so I'm starting to wonder if Stegman is aware that lower case letters exist. 

Rogue's Jersey housewife hair game is on fleek.

The good Captain tells Rogue, who I notice has quite the bumpit game going on, that he trusts Deadpool, and that should be enough for Rogue. After all, it worked out with Wolverine. Fair point, except Rogue never said she had problems trust him. She said she was sick of him, which I completely understand. I know Deadpool has a lot of fans out there, so I'm going to try not to earn the wrath of the internet, but I've always been of the mind that Deadpool works best when he's either on his own in a book that runs on cartoon logic, only used in small doses, or in a team book with a darker tone and/or leadership he doesn't dare goof off around. My complaints about Remender's Uncanny X-Force and Avengers aside, Deadpool was one of the few things that I will say hands down was excellent from beginning to end. Yes, he was still weird, but between the more serious tone of the ensemble and the fact that he knows better than to push Wolverine's buttons too much, he was a much more subdued version of himself who actually was given a lot of space to show that he is more than just a merc or a mouth. 

If this dynamic doesn't make you "aw," check to see if you have a heart.

A lot of times, however, that's all we get when people write Deadpool. He's the comedy mule and sometimes he treads the thin line of funny and grating a bit too much. And especially considering this issue was coming out during all the hype leading into his motion picture premiere, yeah... Rogue speaks to our collective fan fatigue. It goes without saying that Deadpool is definitely a good guy, albeit an unconventional one, but in-universe it's been pretty well established that everyone kind of hates working with him.

Rogers backs up his "I vouch for him" defense by also pointing out that with the Avengers being broke and no longer working with SHIELD or the government, it's the funds brought in from Deadpool's new-found fame that's keeping them afloat. Not only is that again, incredibly meta, but it plants a lot of questions about what the hell has happened in-universe in the past eight months that I'm hoping will slowly get addressed.

Rogue can achieve Jewish grandmother level of guilt trips.

Cap also mentions that she should really give him more of a chance, citing that awkward time Rogue was a super villain, tried to kill him, and ate Carol Danvers brain, but is now his trusted field commander as an illustration of how wrong a bad first impression can be. I don't think he realizes what a backhanded compliment that really was. I honestly don't think he's physically capable of shade, but I'll buy him putting his foot in his mouth with good intentions. He does recover by telling Rogue how proud he is oh how she has put on a stiff upper lip in the face of (yet another) potential mutant extinction crisis. Rogue obviously isn't keen on praise and flies away to the abandoned theater's tech booth, mentioning how mutants are basically crap magnets. I have to hand it to her, this is her second instance of incredibly lucid meta-commentary in the past five minutes. Rogue is a lot smarter than anyone gives her credit for. Meanwhile, Cap has opened a secret passage in the back of the stage and heads off presumably to put practice his organ and/or kidnap find an opera mask. Maybe his weirdly deformed face in close-ups was intentional after all.

Up in the tech booth, Rogue has taken off her glove and is running a scan. It looks truly gruesome. Her skin is sickly, discolored, necrotic, and covered in boils. It seems she is super sick from the T-Mist, but has been keeping this secret from the team. Good thing the computer's AI can whip up the mutant equivalent of AZT for her (fun sidenote: did you know mutants are immune to AIDS? The more you know...). It seems the T-Pox can be maintained but not cured.

Theater ghosts eat your food props and
cause your the sets that your slave-wage
interns built to break. 

Elsewhere, Brother Voodoo is having what I imagine in a typical evening by his reckoning. He's talking to a ghost who haunts the theater, killed while doing some mafioso-type activities back when the space was a speakeasy in the 20s. If it's like the older theaters I've worked in, it's probably also been a movie house, an art house, a porno theater, and home to any number of indigents.

Talking to ghosts seems to be his jam. I honestly think he gets off from passive aggressively goading the spirit. The "helping spirits move on" story is just a cover for his need to play a consequence-free game of "poke the bear." The ghost evaporates, however when Jericho is joined by Captain America, who by now has presumably delivered his notes to Firmin and Andre about keeping Box 5 open. He's brandishing a beer, which honestly would be a bit socially irresponsible of him to drink on the job, but honestly, he's 90 but still looks like an MMA fighter, so I think he's earned it.
Their conversation turns to the one team member who was missing in the fight with the Super Adaptoid: Quicksilver. Captain gives him a pass, saying that Quickie has found a new lease on life ever since finding out Magneto isn't his dad. I'm not going to delve to deeply into that. The short version is that at some point, Wundagore Mountain was apparently THE PLACE to get rid of your unwanted twins and Bova the aptly named the goat-woman is horrible at keeping all the foundlings straight. They're not Magneto's kids. Whatever. That will get retconned at least six more times in our lifetime. And that is a lowball guess. More importantly, they aren't mutants, which is the sillier thing. Apparently, they're the results of the High Evolutionary doing what he does best-- playing god.

I'm distracted from his lothario behavior due to
questioning whether he ran across the Atlantic or
cut across the Arctic Circle

Anyway, by "a new lease on life," Cap meant that he's speed dating. Three panels, three ladies, three different skylines. Pietro is nothing if not dedicated to his shtick. The third lucky lady just happens to be team newbie, Synapse. Apparently, Cap has a "no hooking up with team members" rule. Of course, Quicksilver is one of the most affable jerk heroes in the Marvel Universe, so he lives for this shit. The date is cut short however when one of Synapse's pigeons attacks her and causes a seizure. Quickie is ready to rush her to the hospital, but instead she says they need to go to Boston and the team needs to mobilize. Good intel, pigeon. Now go join your buddies on the statue of Martin Scorsese.

I feel less bad about Spider-Man leaving him high and dry
now that I know he probably broke Rogue's heart.
#Rogue&Magneto4ever

As the rest of the team arrives on the scene, Rogue and Johnny take the time to have some UST. Again we have another bit of "what did I miss" as they seem to banter about the past in very vague terms. I'm guessing they had a thing going, but Johnny ended up fooling around with Medusa. I always get the feeling that Johnny is supposed to be to Marvel what Dick Grayson is to DC, but I guess that giving the heartthrob role to a character who can be a bit of a little shit has its drawbacks. 

Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? You are!

Down below, they arrive at one of the least likely, and yet increasingly recurrent end of the world scenarios: plant apocalypse! Overgrown vines engulf the city, giant puffs of pollen float in the air and there are giant bees, which would scare my melissophobic best friend shitless.  Quicksilver demonstrates that these plants grow demon dogs by showing them a lovely red flowering plant, bulb quickly swells like a water balloon and BOOM!  One not-yet-full-grown Zuul about the size of a full-grown rottweiler.                                           Synapse points out that the Zuuls' brains don't "speak to" her. I'm starting to piece together that she's not a telepath, but effectively is one. My best guess is that she can read and manipulate neural electricity, brain patterns, impulse nerves, etc.  

Elsewhere, a security guard is... Does it matter what he's attempting? He's appearing in the last couple pages of a comic in an sketchy, overgrown environment that screams "I'd turn back if I were you." Anyone who has been in the speculative fiction game for two days knows that we shouldn't get too attached to this guy. He tells an unseen figure that he needs to evacuate the area, to which the ominous character makes a less than impressive villain threat response, "You will evacuate this area forever." I'm sorry, but that's bad even for a first-time villain. Well, if this creepiness weren't enough of a clue, lo and behold, he gets stung by a giant bug (not as big as the bees, but still...). He coughs and wheezes, obviously not responding well to whatever he was stung with as we finally meet our antagonist. 

Fear his previously established design elements

He's mostly covered in shadow which doesn't make for the greatest reveal, but there is something impressive about him even if I think it's because he has the trappings of other villains. He has the hood and guantlets Dr. Doom, he's stroking one of the demon dogs like Dr. Claw or Ernst Blofeld, has a rebreather for mask like The Empty Child by way of Shredder, and he at least doesn't seem to have a body from the waist down, making his tattered cape look oddly spectral like a Dementor. He's super-villain loaf. I want to say they kind of work together, but these are villain design elements that I think I've seen put together in one combination or another far more than once. I'd say for a first issue villain reveal, this is a let-down, but considering this is the third first issue this title has had in four years, maybe it's getting harder to make such things feel rote. 

I think what he says might back up that argument. He introduces himself as The Shredded Man, declaring that humanity's day is over. Okay, once again, as a first time villain, he is getting a pass on that cliche villain intro. What actually bugs me is his personal presentation is even further diminished by his lacklustre name. Not only isn't it the most awe-inspiring name, but considering one of his visual cues is The Shredder, it feels like a lack of time was spent on him. Again, that makes sense because I think Duggar's focus was trained keenly on what the main characters are going through emotionally and interpersonally that four days before this book went to print, editorial must have pulled him aside and told him that unless he wants to write a much smarter story, he is contractually obligated to shoehorn in a villain. So he cobbled something together and jammed him into the first few and last few pages of the book. He feels like an obligation, whereas I feel like it might have been better to save his intro for the next issue, which would have given our main cast that moment of realizing the horror of their very environment turning against them.